COURT HOUSE
2025
Sited on an irregular, sloping block, Court House emerges from a rigorous series of massing studies that sought to maximise the site’s potential while maintaining sensitivity to the surrounding neighbourhood character and streetscape.
The project massing began as a monolithic volume that was sliced into a grid, hollowed out, and manipulated at its edges. This process generated a porous, highly articulated form and a plan of immense spatial possibility. At its centre, a swimming pool establishes a swimmable courtyard, dividing the house into two distinct wings. The ground level accommodates entry and primary living spaces, while the upper-level separates parents’ and children’s domains, balancing connection and privacy.
A continuous double-height void stitches the two wings together, drawing natural light deep into the floor plate. Suspended within this volume, a perforated steel catwalk reconnects the upper level, floating above the kitchen and informal living spaces below and reinforcing the project’s structural clarity and theatricality.
With the client himself a builder, the brief carried an ambition to push domestic construction toward commercial-scale methodologies. The house is constructed almost entirely from flat and curved precast concrete panels and post-tensioned concrete slabs — systems typically reserved for large commercial buildings. The result is an engineering tour de force of soaring voids, dramatic cantilevers, and expansive column-free spans.
Concrete is left exposed and unapologetic, celebrated in its rawness yet subtly softened through the curvature of edges and corners. A defining feature of the project is a suite of twenty curved windows — some exceeding eight metres in height — that bend 180 degrees back onto themselves. These sculptural apertures modulate light, mitigate the harsh western sun, and lend a surprising softness to the otherwise robust structural language.
Internally, the house unfolds as a sequence of varied and generous spaces, including an expansive sunken lounge, four bedrooms, multiple retreat areas, and parking for up to eight cars. Interior finishes introduce warmth and tactility: black WOCA-stained timber, natural materials, and calibrated moments of vibrant colour provide contrast to the weight and permanence of the concrete shell.
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HOUSE
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COMPLETED 2025
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WURUNDERI | STRATHMORE, VICTORIA
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LANDSCAPE | OPENWORK
STRUCTURAL ENGINEER | LCI
BUILDING SURVEYOR | du CHATEAU CHUN
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CONSTRUCTION PHOTOS BY MARCH STUDIO
COMPLETED PHOTOS | PETER BENNETTS